Reasons and Causes
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Recent papers in Reasons and Causes
In ´The Primacy of Method in Historical Research: Philosophy of History and the Per- spective of Meaning´, Jonas Ahlskog presents a critical and lucid engagement with con- temporary philosophies of history and makes a sustained case... more
The mentalistic orthodoxy about reason-explanations of action in the philosophy of mind has recently come under renewed attack. Julia Tanney is among those who have critiqued mentalism. The alternative account of the folk practice of... more
Does the event causal view of agency provide a satisfactory view of human agency? I will outline what I will call the 'standard story' of action. It is often said to begin with Donald Davidson.4 His account of action is also a theory of... more
A thesis by Giorgio Prodi (taken up by Felice Cimatti and Daniele Gambarara) is discussed, according to which the linguistic function, present in humans in a very elaborate form and suitable for complex communication, represents the... more
This paper puts the theories of Donald Davidson into conversation with those of Edmund Husserl, arguing that their work can be read as representing different species of a singular kind, with both defending: (1) versions of anomalous... more
In my paper, I present an interpretation of Elizabeth Anscombe's view of essentially intentional actions in her book Intention, which I call “essentialism”. I use textual evidence from Intention to argue that Anscombe believes that... more
Anscombe claims that the applicability of ‘why’ questions – ‘Why are you leaving?’, ‘Why did you do that?’ – is a distinguishing feature of intentional action. I critically discuss a near-identical claim – the Distinguishing Feature Claim... more
In this essay I ague that the mainstream ‘Standard Story’ of action – according to which actions are bodily motions with the right internal mental states as their causal triggers (e.g., ‘belief-desire-pairs’, ‘intentions’) – gives rise to... more
This article argues that, in order to understand Peter Winch's view of philosophy, it is profitable to read him together with R. G. Collingwood's philosophy of history. Collingwood was both an important source for Winch and a thinker... more
So conceived, practical reasoning (inference, syllogism) is practical by virtue of its content or subject matter: it is ordinary reasoning about practical matters that is properly contrasted with, e.g. historical, economic, and biological... more
I argue that agents, by exercising their wills, cause action-results and that volitions or willings are uncaused basic actions. I motivate the existence of volitions by highlighting the important role they play in providing an answer to... more
UPDATE SPRING 2024: A revised version of this talk is forthcoming from COLLINGWOOD AND BRITISH IDEALISM STUDIES. Thanks to those who read and commented on this draft. My recent talk on R. G. Collingwood, for a project on "genealogies... more
This paper focuses on the way in which thick concepts manage to combine the descriptive and the evaluative. It accepts Blackburn’s suggestion that thick terms have variable relevance, but disputes his conclusion that there are no thick... more
Citing this paper Please note that where the full-text provided on King's Research Portal is the Author Accepted Manuscript or Post-Print version this may differ from the final Published version. If citing, it is advised that you... more
In 'The Idea of History', R.G Collingwood claims that the idea of history is very special type of idea that requires a very special kind of study. In this paper I explain the reasons behind Collingwood's claim that history cannot be... more
In this paper, I will defend a communitarian perspective on the so-called "hinge propositions" (hinges, for short). Accordingly, I will argue that hinges play a normative role, in the sense that, among other things, they govern the... more
Donald Davidson’s causal theory of actions states that actions must be rationalized and caused by a belief-desire-pair. One problem of such a causal theory are cases of deviant causal chains. In these cases, the rationalized action is not... more